


Larks and Labors

by bewareofitalics



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewareofitalics/pseuds/bewareofitalics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirteen drabbles, mostly focused on Cosette and those involved in her storyline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Larks and Labors

**Author's Note:**

> The drabbles aren't necessarily related to each other, but I've placed them in approximate chronological order. Written between 2003 and 2005.

“Well, what should we call this one?” asked Jeanne, looking on as her husband held their new son.

“I was thinking of Jean,” said the proud father.

Jeanne groaned. “Isn’t this getting a bit ridiculous?” she asked. “A Jean and a Jeanne marry, that’s fine. They have a daughter named Jeanne, all right. But now a son named Jean? Jean, Jeanne, Jeanne, and Jean Valjean?”

“I like it,” said Jean.

“But it’s such a nothing name. Anyone could be named Jean. Why not, oh, Auguste?”

“I like Jean,” insisted Jean. “It will be his job to make his name special.”

^^^^^^

Marie was running away. Home wasn’t fun anymore – her mother was grumpy, her brothers and sisters mean. Why, just that morning Guillaume had stolen her doll and Jacqueline had pulled her hair. Yes, it was much better to sit on the roof, out of reach.

“Lunchtime, little one,” said a voice behind her.

“Not goin’,” Marie stubbornly told her uncle.

“Yes goin’,” he replied, lifting her. He shifted her to one arm, and carefully climbed down from the roof.

Marie snuggled into the strong, hesitant arm surrounding her. “You’re my favorite, Uncle Jean,” she said.

But Jean Valjean just grunted.

^^^^^^

“You won’t have it, of course.”

“Why not?” asked Fantine. “It could be sweet. A little doll to dress up and take places. Do let me keep it, Félix!”

“Why do you want it so?” asked Félix, playing with Fantine’s hair. “There are better ways to spend our time than taking care of a child. There’s a woman who can get rid of it for you.”

Fantine squirmed away. “I don’t want to go to that woman. I am afraid.”

“Afraid? Fear’s no reason to throw your life away.”

“I’m not throwing my life away, Félix. Let me keep it.”

^^^^^^

Tholomyès studied the dilapidated inn. “This place looks as good as any,” he said to the anxious brunette hanging on his arm. He banged on the door.

“Coming!” came a grating voice, and the door opened. “Welcome monsieur. The name’s Thénardier, what’s your pleasure?”

“A bottle of wine, if you please, and a room for the night.” 

“Certainly. Cosette!” barked the innkeeper. “Wine for the gentleman!”

A child, her eyes big as cobblestones in her little face, hurried to obey.

“Cosette,” murmured Tholomyès. The name sparked memories of golden hair and pearly teeth. 

“A silly name,” said the brunette.

“Perhaps.”

^^^^^^

Éponine and Azelma were playing wedding again. Cosette watched longingly as Éponine twirled with a stained white tablecloth draped over her head. When she played wedding, it was only in her mind. She saw herself, tall and clean and in a pretty white dress, dancing with a handsome man. Sometimes he was sweet-faced and blond, sometimes grinning and freckled, but most often he had wavy black hair, soulful dark eyes, and a wonderful smile Cosette knew was just for her. Lost in her imaginary world, Cosette tried a twirl of her own.

“Maman!” whined Éponine. “The brat’s not doing work!”

^^^^^^

The roof leaked. No matter, it always had, and who complains about a leak when they at least have a roof? Besides, the soft “plink” had become comforting.

No, what mattered was not the leak itself. What mattered was that it had gotten bigger. Fantine no longer had enough scraps of glass and fabric to catch the water and make sure her downstairs neighbor’s ceiling stayed intact. Fantine was still polite in her fall, polite and too proud to cause a fuss.

That night she slept under the leak, the wet spot on her coverlet stiffening as the temperatures plunged.

^^^^^^

“Éponine, I’m scared.”

“Don’t be a baby, Azelma.”

The girls continued walking in silence, their bucket banging against their knees. A sudden noise made Azelma gasp and clutch at her sister.

“Ponine-!”

“Ssh!”

A few more silent steps brought the pair to the well. “Gimme the bucket,” said Éponine, and Azelma obeyed. Éponine shoved the bucket into the water, and, using all of her strength, drew it out again. “Now help carry it.”

After a few steps, Azelma tripped, spilling the icy water over both sisters. “I hate Cosette!” wailed Azelma. “I hate her!”

“Ssh,” said Éponine. “So do I.”

^^^^^^

Cosette never told her father the difficulty of those days in the convent. When she was with him, she chattered of the girls and nuns, not the thick, sometimes frightening, silence of the cloister. She lived for those moments in the garden. The sun dried skin damp with tears and stone walls, the wind was a breath of life. And the birds, the birds! Whistling sweetly, squawking noisily, eating from the highest branches. Cosette made friends with a lark, running after it with arms like wings. She was never so happy as with her lark, and somehow never so sad.

^^^^^^

There was an old woman hobbling down the streets of Paris. A ragged shawl covered her shoulders, a ragged scarf covered her hair. As Javert passed her, something familiar in her profile caught his eye. “Valjean,” he hissed.

The woman stopped. “Do you know me, Monsieur?”

“Of course; I have seen through better disguises.”

The woman laughed raggedly. “Your disguise is better than mine, Monsieur, for I cannot place you at all. But you must know me well – I have not been a Valjean for many years.”

“Do not play games, Jean Valjean.”

“Jean! Why then, you know my brother!”

^^^^^^

They went to the theatre often when they began to spend money. Cosette was fascinated by the stories she saw, love and hate and thrilling tragedy. Each night, the actors lived lives Cosette could only dream of.

“What if I were to become an actress?” Cosette said teasingly to Marius one night. She paused in her undressing, struck a pose in front of the mirror.

Her husband smiled, tolerantly, and kissed her as he helped undo her hair. “All I want you to be is my little wife, Madame the Baroness Pontmercy.”

Cosette’s laugh trilled. But suddenly, there was discontent.

^^^^^^

My husband is quite the spendthrift, always buying me pretty things I don’t need. We live in a mansion – whenever you open a door you find a more beautiful room. We have lavish parties, serve expensive food.

If it weren’t for Papa, I’d love it.

“You won’t be happy with him,” he had said.

“Won’t be happy?” I repeated. “He loves me!”

His face was fierce in the starlight. “If you marry him, I swear, you will be miserable.”

I told my husband later. “Don’t be silly, Azelma,” he’d said.

But Papa has a way of making threats come true.

^^^^^^

Everyone agreed that she was a beautiful child. Her mother’s eyes, her father’s nose, and the golden hair that had surprised them both. Cosette and Marius discussed their daughter’s hair occasionally. They supposed it had come from Cosette’s mother, who came into their dreams as a benevolent, sad-eyed angel. Marius’s father was another possibility – Marius had only seen him when his hair was white. His mother’s head, he knew from the portrait, had been as dark as his own.

But it didn’t matter. Little Fantine had her golden hair, and would have the happy childhood both parents had been denied.

^^^^^^

The clock struck twelve as Cosette crept up to the roof. There she sat, pulled off her nightcap, and let her curls dance in the wind. Five years a wife, and the mother of two children, it was rare that she got a moment to herself.

“Cosette?”

And it looked like she wouldn’t get that moment now. There was Marius, looking small and timid in his nightshirt, as if he were a third child.

“Why are you up here?” he asked.

“I wanted some air.”

Marius dropped a kiss on his wife’s head. “I love you, you know.”

“I know.”


End file.
